“Contemplative Prayer is Dangerous — the Way Jesus is Dangerous”

A regular reader of this blog recently named Peter wrote to me:

Carl, I’ve been reading about the Jesus Prayer. On the Orthodox sites they stress that if you haven’t had any experience with this prayer that you should get guidance and that it’s dangerous to try it on your own. When reading about the Jesus Prayer on other Christian sites like the Catholic ones then this advice is not mentioned. Can you please share with me your take on it?

Peter, your question reminds me of post I made on Twitter...